Vampires, Blood, and Nudity: Behind the Makeup of True Blood

After six glorious years of sexy, sweaty, blood-sucking fun, HBO’s iconic True Blood series is finally coming to an end, with its final season premiering this Sunday. “It’s been such a wild ride,” says makeup department head Brigette Ellis. “We pushed our limits beheading people, ripping hearts out. That’s my favorite thing about the show; we get to do some of the fanciest, craziest makeup, and then—excuse my language—we get to f**k it all up.” To kick off season seven, Ellis shares a behind-the-scenes look into the world of fake blood and vampire makeup.

What was the original concept for the vampires’ makeup? “When we first started the show, we wanted the vampires to be supersexy, but you weren’t supposed to be able to pick up that they were vampires right away. Part of the fun was not knowing. So we don’t use prosthetics. There are just some small details, like the rimming around their eyes and nails is red.”

How do you make them red? “We use M.A.C. Cranberry Eye Shadow. For the nails, it’s Aged Blood Illustrator, which is like an alcohol-based paint. The funny thing is these poor vampires are stuck in it, because if they don’t get us to take it off, it’s there for days. You’re at the local Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and you see somebody with blood-rimmed nails—you’re like, ‘Hey, do you work on True Blood?’”

Tell me about the blood tears. “After seven seasons, I feel like we’ve finally mastered them. If I know somebody is going to be crying, I’ll lay in the tears, and then visual effects will do the actual drop and marry my work with theirs, because there’s only so close you can bring that stuff to the eye. And then we have different products to make it look dry or fresh or old or smeared, different fake bloods.”

What are the major differences between human and vampire makeup? “The vampires are always going to be matte, because they don’t sweat or have a heartbeat so the main thing is to keep them cool. They all wear M.A.C. Blot Powder, too, and we try to keep them out of the sun as much as we can. I found this company called Devida that has really great solar care that I use on them. The humans we set with powder in the morning, but then we just use blotting sheets to make sure they’re staying dewy.”

How do you navigate the sweaty sex scenes? “There’s definitely been a learning curve with all the nudity. When you have an actor who’s in full tan body makeup and an actor who’s in full white body makeup for being a vampire, that’s not going to go over so well. So a lot of the time, for humans, they’re spray tanned, because you can at least cut down on one smudging transfer.”

Whose makeup takes the longest? “Any of the vampire girls take some time. They’re so worldly, so we really want to make them look exotic. I spend as much money on eyelashes as I do on blood. But on a big gag, resetting and starting fresh from the top is always going to be the hardest. We’ve had it take five hours, because there’s blood all over everyone. Dermalogica PreCleanse is a staple. We’re all obsessed with it, even the boys. It’s an oil that you rub on your face and it just breaks down all the makeup.”